Post-Communist Wars

The Post-Communist Wars (1988-2008) were a series of wars in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc that lasted for twenty years. The major wars were the Nagorno-Karabakh War, Abkhazian War of Independence, South Ossetian War of Independence, Chechen Wars, and Yugoslav Wars.

Background
Both the USSR and Yugoslavia consisted of federations of partly autonomous republics with many peoples held together in a single state under communist rule.

The Soviet Union
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) consisted of 15 separate republics. In 1985 Mikhail Gorbachev became leader and began to reform its Communist economy and political system through perestroika ("reconstruction") and glasnost ("openness"). He tried to hold the USSR together as a communist nation by giving greater power to the individual republics, but in 1991 they declared their independence, so bringing an end to communist rule and dissolving the USSR.

Yugoslavia
At the end of World War II, the communists under Yosip Broz Tito took power in Yugoslavia. Tito reorganized the multi-ethnic country into a federation of six republics held together by his strong leadership. After his death in 1980, tensions rose between the republics. Slovenia and Croatia both elected non-communist governments, while the Serbian government of Slobodan Milosevic became increasingly nationalist. In 1991 Milosevic refused to accept a Croat as federal president, causing Slovenia, Croatia, and Macedonia to declare their independence from Yugoslavia.

Wars
The nations of the Caucasus were incorporated into Russia's empire during the 19th century but never fully reconciled to, first Russian, and then Soviet, domination.

Modern conflict in the region began in Armenia and Azerbaijan. The enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh was officially part of, and totally surrounded by, Azerbaijan but was historically part of Armenia and was almost entirely Armenian in terms of population. Its regional parliament voted to join Armenia in February 1988, prompting widespread ethnic violence as Azeris were expelled from Armenia and Armenians forced out of Azerbaijan. In January 1990, the Azeri Popular Front won an election held in Azerbaijan and declared not only its independence from the USSR but also war on rmeni. Soviet tanks crushed the revolt, killing more than 100 people in the capital, Baku. But as the USSR broke up, both Armenia and Azerbaijan declared their independence. In 1992 Armenian Nagorno-Karabakh irregulars occupied the narrow border region between Armenia and the province, linking the two together. Despite peace talks being held in 2001, the future of the enclave remins unsettled today.

Georgia
Georgia declared independence in 1991 but immediately faced ethnic separatist movements in three provinces. South Ossetians wishing to remain Russian by joining the republic of North Ossetia fought Georgian troops in November 1991 until a ceasefire was arranged in July 1992. Russian peacekeeping forces occupied buffer zone between Georgia and South Ossetia. Abkhazia, to the west, also declared its independence in 1992. The Georgians invaded but were driven out in 1993 after savage fighting. Again, Russian troops then kept the two sides apart. Adzharia, the third province, was reconquered by Georgia in 2004.

Chechnya
The present-day Russian Federation consists of 83 republics, districts, and other regions. The Chechen republic in the northern Caucasus has always been fiercely independent and has resented Russian rule since it was conquered in 859. In the chaos surrounding the USSR's breakup, Chechnya declared its independence. Russia ignored the move and tried to agree a settlement. In 1994 fighting broke out when Chechens opposing independence tried to take the capital, Grozny. Russia sent troops to intervene, who shelled the city and seized it in early 1995. The Chechen rebels fighting for independence then took to the mountains and conducted guerrilla warfare against Russian targets. In 1996 Russia agreed a ceasefire and withdrew its troops.

Chechen separatists renewed their campaign in 1999. A series of bomb attacks across Russia killed 300 people, although many suspected the Russian Secret Service of planting the bombs in order to provide a pretext for a renewal of the war, as neither the Secret Service nor the Russian Army had been willing to accept defeat in Chechnya. Russian troops invaded the republic again in October 1999 and heavily bombed Grozny, causing many casualties and forcing some 200,000 citizens to flee. The majority of them headed for the region in Ingushetia. In response, Chechens seized hostages in a Moscow theatre and subsequently fought an increasingly bitter battle in the province itself with Russian troops. A new constitution was agreed in 2003 that gave Chechnya greater autonomy within Russia and a pro-Russian president installed in what was widely seen as a rigged election.

Yugoslavia
The breakup of Yugoslavia in June 1991 was contested by Serbia, whose people were the dominant ethnic group in the country. The Serb-controlled Yugoslav Army fought a one-week battle to stop Slovenia from leaving the union before a ceasefire was declared. Fighting with Croatia lasted until January of the following year, when the Yugoslav Army withdrew, although its troops remained in Serb-majority areas of Croatia until they were evicted by the Croatian Army in 1998. The successful departure from Yugoslavia of Croatia and Slovenia led multi-ethnic Bosnia-Herzegovina to fear for its future, for in March 1991, Serb and Croat leaders had secretly agreed to divide Bosnia between them. In March 1992, Bosnia declared independence, prompting its Serb population to set up their own independent Republika Srpska.

A three-way civil war then broke out: an uneasy coalition of Muslims and Croats fought the Serbs, while elsewhere Muslims defended themselves against separate Serb and Croat forces. By mid-1993 Serbs controlled about 70% of Bosnia, killing or expelling non-Serbs in a brutal campaign of "ethnic cleansing". The United Nations imposed sanctions against Serbia and established six safe havens for Muslims in Bosnia. But the UN failed to protect these areas, allowing Serbs to overrun them in 1995, killing some 8,000 Muslims at Srebrenica. NATO then bombed Serb positions, forcing Serbia to agree a peace treaty with Bosnia and Croatia that divided the region between Serb and Muslim-Croat states.

Kosovo
In the former Yugoslavia, Kosovo was a southern Serbian province inhabited mainly by Kosovar Albanians. Slobodan Milosevic's Serb government decided to end the province's autonomy in 1989 and fiercely suppressed all dissent, claiming that Kosovo was a historic part of Serbia; 600 years previously in 1389, the Ottoman Turks had ended Serbian independence at the battle of Kosovo Polje.

Albanian fighters in the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) first confronted Serb forces in January 1998, prompting the Serbian government to send in troops to crush the rebels. Many hundreds of thousands of Albanians fled their homes as Serbs conducted widespread ethnic cleansing in the province. When Serbia subsequently refused to accept peace terms, NATO planes bombed the region in an 11-week campaign. It was only after this prolonged bombardment that Serbia ended its ttacks on Kosovo and began to withdraw its troops.

Aftermath
The conflicts in the former Soviet republics and Yugoslavia have yet to be resolved. Ethnic rivalries remain intense and fears of Russian empire-building persist.

Serbia and Kosovo
After the war, Kosovo came under United Nations administration. Up to 280,000 Serbs left, as they feared retaliation from Albanians. In 2008 the Assembly of Kosovo declared the province independent, but it was not recognized by Serbia or Russia. Many prominent Serbs had been indicted for war crimes, including Slobodan Milosevic, who died during his trial in 2006, and Radovan Karadzic, former president of Republika Srpska.

Georgia
In August 2008, fighting broke out again between Russia and Georgia over South Ossetia. Georgian troops attempted to retake the breakaway province, but Russia sent in tanks and bombed targets inside Georgia. t the same time, Russian troops stationed in Abkhazia invaded western Georgia. A precarious ceasefire was arranged by the European Union.